


we make the road by walking

by spacenarwhal



Series: we make this road by walking [2]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Canonical Jewish Character, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Nightmares, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik does not know how exactly he came to inherit this responsibility. It’s usually Charles the younger children cry for when they are homesick or frightened. Some even ask for Mystique when they are dealing with some emotional turmoil or other. Kitty Pryde, for whatever reason, has taken a liking to Erik.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we make the road by walking

**Author's Note:**

> *Cackles at the night sky* I regret nothing.

Charles wakes to a soft knock at the door, sighs into his pillow and thinks fondly of the days when he could count on an undisturbed night of sleep. Erik’s arm tightens around his waist, his exasperated exhale muffled between Charles’ shoulders. “I’ll get it.” He grumbles, slipping away before Charles can so much as mumble his thanks. He lets his appreciation brush against Erik’s consciousness, feels the reciprocation of Erik’s own affection, however tinged it might be with that particularly disgruntled energy that comes from being roused out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night.

The door creaks open behind his back but Charles doesn’t bother rolling over to see who it is. “Sorry Pro—oh, uh, sorry Erik.” Hank. For a man who spends an incredible amount of his time transforming into a large blue creature, Hank still cannot seem to keep his calm when confronted with Erik in anything like a private setting. Even now, after almost twenty years of cohabitating, of working together at the school and on the team, Hank still needs a moment to collect himself before he continues with whatever it is that’s brought him here at this hour. “Uh—it’s Kitty.”

Charles feels the ripple of irritation that runs through Erik which has nothing to do with Hank. “Again?” Erik asks, incredulous, before he resigns himself with a level response. “I’ll be right there.”

He eases the door shut and Charles can still sense Hank, lingering out in the hallway. He pushes out further, past the teacher quarters to the student dormitories. So many resting minds, quick at work inside their dreams, but then, like a light in the deep dark of the night, he finds her. “Poor dear.” He murmurs, feeling the deep well of Kitty’s fear, shivering through her mind. Behind him Erik snorts. “I’m going to kill Summers. Who lets a child watch that sort of thing?”

“It was a nature documentary, Erik.” Charles says, curtailing him before this turns into another hour long sermon about why Scott should never have been hired on as a teacher in the first place. Erik and Scott have always had a strained relationship, colored by everything Alex told Scott prior to bringing him to the school, everything Scott knew of Erik when he was only a teenage boy. Charles’ affection for them both keeps them in check more often than not, but it is at times like these that Charles wishes they could just settle matters once and for all. 

“Yes and now she’s having nightmares about malicious ocean creatures coming for her in her bed.”

Charles lets his eyes open to the dark of the bedroom then, turns to look over his shoulder. He can just barely make out Erik’s shifting shadow in the lowlight, the rustle of his housecoat as he ties it about his waist. Charles closes his eyes again, remembers the soft weave of the dark burgundy fabric, thinks of how handsome Erik is, even now, with grey coming in thicker and thicker in his hair, his beard (when he lets it shadow his face) more white than ginger with every passing year. Charles delights in these tiny markers time bestows on them, the softening muscle no amount of sit ups can do away with to match the weakening of Charles’ eyes, the thin, wire-rim glasses he’s taken to wearing whenever he has to read small print, catalogues them all for safe keeping. Reassurances of what they share. For a man with a tendency to live inside his own mind, Charles likes having the physical reminders more than he cares to admit.

Erik comes back to the bed, drops on one knee and bends forward to press a quick, dry kiss to the top of Charles’ head. There’s the jangle of satisfaction in Erik’s mind, he knows how much Charles hates when he does that, but before Charles can rebuke him he’s slipping away, off the bed and out the room. 

Charles pulls the blankets slightly higher, following the bright pinpoint of Erik’s mind as it retreats farther and farther.

-

He’s going to kill Summers. This time, he really means to see it through. Erik feels another shuddering sob shake the small frame in his arms.

Erik does not know how exactly he came to inherit this responsibility. It’s usually Charles the younger children cry for when they are homesick or frightened. Some even ask for Mystique when they are dealing with some emotional turmoil or other. Kitty Pryde, for whatever reason, has taken a liking to Erik. She’s young still though hardly the youngest they’ve taken in. Right now, however, trying to hold a deep breath long enough to calm herself, she seems so much younger than her eleven years. “It’s alright, _ketsl._ ” Erik says, one palm firmly held between her shaking shoulders, allowing them both the comfort of a familiar nickname. “It’s alright now.” Kitty shakes her head, nose dragging over Erik’s housecoat. He grimaces. Charles has obviously been a poor influence if Erik’s despairing over the thought of snot on his clothing. He’s had to wash out far worse. 

Kitty’s small hands tighten into the lapel of his housecoat. “It was terrible.” She cries. Kitty’s dreams are nothing like Jean’s once were. They do not shake the foundations of the house or cause wallpaper to boil and peel from the walls. But they are still frightening enough to leave her like this. “The house flooded and—they were everywhere. I couldn’t climb up, I just sank again and again.” She shakes in his grip, so Erik gently takes her shoulders in his grasp, pulls back far enough to study her tear-streaked face in the yellow light of her bedside lamp. “Enough of that, _ketsl._ ” He chides gently, meeting her red-rimmed brown eyes. (So many years and he still finds himself wondering what she would have looked like. Would she have grown into Magda’s features once time had weaned her face of its childhood softness, would she have inherited his mother’s smile or his grandfather’s scholar-nose. Erik wonders, wonders, and he aches with longing.)

“It was just a dream, little one.” He says, touching her damp face with a soft palm, “Nothing more.”

Kitty’s mouth trembles, a few stray tears falling from her eyes. “It felt so real.”

Erik wipes at her face. “But it wasn’t. You are awake now. You are safe. See,” he looks about the room. There is space enough still for another student when the time comes, but for now, it is only Kitty. The walls are decorated with posters for one band or another, a calendar with different cat pictures for every month. There is an overly large stuffed purple dragon sitting on her desk, a token from home. Truly, she is nothing more than a child. He wishes with all his heart that she will be allowed to remain one for as long as she possibly can. “There is nothing to fear here.”

Kitty glances around the room, then back at him, quick and unnerved like he might have disappeared in the short time her attention was elsewhere. She doesn’t seem especially convinced. 

“I don’t want to go to the aquarium.” She confesses after a moment’s pause. Oh, Erik realizes, that’s what this has been about. Summer and Ororo’s upcoming trip to the aquarium. It’s all many of the new students have been able to talk about in the last week, excited for their first trip off the campus since the start of the school year. Kitty ducks her head, eyes on her limp, pale hands fisted in her lap. “I think—what if I sneeze and phase right into a tank? What if I can’t—can’t phase back out and I drown or I bring all the fish with me and someone gets hurt or—”

“ _Ketsl._ ” Erik says, cutting her off before she can work herself up into another crying fit. “That won’t happen.”

“But whatever if it does?” She asks, her voice small and frightened. Erik takes her chin in hand, brings her face back up. “It will not. But if you’d like tomorrow we will speak with Professor Xavier and make some adjustments to your class schedule, make more time to get familiar with your abilities and what you can do with them. Would you like that?” Kitty hesitates for a single breath and then nods. Erik smiles. “Very well then.”

Twenty years ago he had come back here to stay but he had never imagined the years would bring him here, comforting crying girls in the night. But there is more to this life he has now than he had known for so many years, something that reminds him of that brief oasis, safe in the woods. (“She would have liked you,” he had told Charles once, so long ago, “Your school. She always wanted to meet more people like us but, it was never safe—”)

“ _Shlof mayn kind._ ” Erik says, petting her dark hair, prompting her to lie down again. He fixes the blankets, flicks the lights off with a small twitch of his fingers to tease out a small smile. “Goodnight _rebbe._ ” She says, and Erik pauses, still sitting at her bedside, allows himself a brief smile before he rises to his feet. “ _Shlof ketsl._ ”He says one last time, closes the bedroom door behind with a soft click. One day Kitty, like all the other students before her, will learn about the things he’s done, the role he’s played in the history of mutantkind.

To so many of the younger students he is only Mr. Lehnsherr. Even the name Magneto does not mean what it once did when the youngest recruits call it in the training room. They have not yet made the connection between the aging man who teaches them World History and eats breakfast with them every morning, who provides the bread they need for Tashlikh and teases the youngest students who forget not to eat it before they reach the stream with the blurry figure in decades old news footage. He wonders what she will think of him then, if she will be like Scott who still holds him responsible for what happened to Alex, or Hank who tolerates his presence because Charles welcomed him here. He wonders if she will still call him _rebbe_ then (he thinks of Nina, and wonders if she would have loved him still, if she had seen the blood on his hands, the darkness in his heart, the rage in his soul that forged and branded him from the time he was a young boy. If she had lived long enough to know him as he really was and not just as the man who would sing her lullabies she never had the chance to sing for herself).

“All quiet on the western front?” Charles asks, not bothering to feign sleep when Erik finally returns to bed. Erik listens, extends himself through the wiring and the fixtures, the metal paneling and electromagnetic safeguards that span the grounds. Nothing is out of place. The house is quiet once more 

“You know I hate that man.” Erik responses gruffly, stripping off his sullied housecoat and kicking free his slippers. He slips back into his place beside Charles, draws up the feather duvet and sinks into the mattress, feels every last one of his years all at once. Mystique is not wrong when she teases that domestication has made him soft. This too he’ll blame on Charles.

“That’s rather unfair, don’t you think dear.” Charles rebukes, once again sleepy. The man can sleep at the drop of a hat. He allows Erik to slide towards him, allows him to fold their limbs together once more so that their feet touch, Erik’s arm once more secure around Charles’ waist. He kisses the back of Charles neck, “She’s frightened about the trip to the aquarium.” Erik answers, offering Charles a glimpse of his conversation with Kitty. Charles makes a soft, sleepy sound. “I told her we could practice more, so that she feels secure with her abilities.”

“I’ll have Raven, or perhaps Jean would be best suited—”

“Tomorrow.” Erik says firmly, pressing his forehead to Charles’ shoulder, breathing in the scent of his soap and the detergent the laundress uses on their clothing. He closes his eyes. “It’ll be here soon enough.”

Charles makes another soft noise, lays his hand over Erik’s where it rests on his stomach. There’s the familiar undulation of Charles’ mind touching his, skimming the surface of Erik’s thoughts. He doesn’t pry deeper, but he doesn’t have to. Erik has not had anything to hide in years. “She cares about you very much, you know.” Charles says, more asleep than awake, “You don’t need to be a mind-reader to see it.” 

Erik swallows against a stubborn knot in his throat, more awake than he cares to be at this hour, “Sleep Charles.”

 _This is your home, Erik._ Charles’ voice is a soft whisper in the innermost places of his mind. _One day you will believe it._

Erik presses one more kiss to the wing of Charles’ shoulder, feels the very moment Charles drops into unconsciousness, their connection going lax, still there, but fainter now that Charles is no longer awake.

“I hope you’re right, Charles.” Erik whispers aloud, but there is no response, just the quiet rhythm of Charles’ even breathing in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say, Dadneto is my jam. 
> 
> I am painfully Roman Catholic y'all, so please forgive me if there are any glaring errors in my portrayal of Judaism or my use of the Yiddish language. One day I'm going to write a long, post XMA story about how Erik arrives at this point following the events of the movie since he seemed to be having some real issues with his faith in God and such, but I'm impatient, so I leaped forward in time to this moment.
> 
> Yiddish translations (according to the internet)  
>  _ketsl_ \- kitten  
>  _Shlof mayn kind_ \- sleep my child  
>  _rebbe_ -rabbi/teacher/mentor
> 
> title from a book by Brian McLaren


End file.
